This is a long awaited moment. James Webb Space Telescope Launch, NASA’s main observatory for the next decadescheduled for December 18 in French Guiana.

The telescope was delayed for years, in addition to a number of factors caused by the pandemic and technical problems. But now the world’s most powerful space observatory will answer questions about our solar system, study exoplanets in a new way, and look at our universe more deeply than we could have done before.

James Webb will examine the atmospheres of exoplanets, some of which are potentially habitable, and may reveal clues to the ongoing search for life beyond Earth.

The telescope is equipped with a mirror that can be up to 6.5 meters long, which allows the equipment to capture more light from objects observed in space. The more light the mirror captures, the more detail the telescope sees.

The mirror has 18 gold-plated hexagonal segments with a diameter of 1.32 meters each.

It is the largest mirror the agency has ever built, according to NASA, but its size created another problem. The mirror was so big it couldn’t fit on the rocket. Thus, the telescope had to be designed as a set of moving parts that could fold like origami and fit into a 5-meter launch space.

Each space telescope builds on the knowledge gained from the previous one. In the case of James Webb, its mirror is nearly 60 times larger than previous space telescopes such as the retired Spitzer Space Telescope. The observatory has also improved its sensitivity and resolution with respect to Hubble Space Telescope…

According to NASA, Webb will act as an infrared explorer, detecting light invisible to us and revealing hidden regions of space.

The telescope was first conceived as Hubble’s successor in the laboratory in 1989, and construction began in 2004. Since then, thousands of scientists, technicians and engineers from 14 countries have spent 40 million hours working on the telescope.

Now Webb is ready to help us understand the origin of the universe and begin answering key questions about our existence, such as where we came from and are we alone in the universe.

What Webb will see

The Webb Telescope will study every phase of cosmic history, including the first post-Big Bang radiation that created the universe and the formation of galaxies, stars and planets. Its features will allow the observatory to answer questions about our solar system and study faint signals from the first galaxies formed 13.5 billion years ago.

Webb’s scientific goals are ambitious, and scientists around the world will use the allotted time with a telescope to observe and analyze a wide range of planets, black holes, galaxies, stars and the structure of the universe itself.

One of the main directions is the formation and evolution of planets both in our solar system and in a large number of specimens outside of it. Of particular interest are the planets located in the habitable zone of the star, the orbital region where the planet is at the right temperature for liquid water on its surface, suggesting that it could potentially support life as we know it.

The Spitzer Telescope, as well as NASA’s current Transiting Exoplanet Exploration (TESS) mission, have helped scientists set targets for monitoring Webb, including some of Spitzer’s “big hits.” Webb will be able to characterize exoplanets beyond Spitzer’s ability to measure a planet’s size, and will be able to see the intricate details of their appearance.

For example, in February 2017, astronomers announced the discovery of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a star 40 light-years from Earth. With Spitzer’s help, seven exoplanets have been detected close together in orbit around the cold dwarf TRAPPIST-1. Each planet is named TRAPPIST – a tribute to the explorers of their favorite beer.

One of Webb’s targets is TRAPPIST-1e, which can hold liquid water on its surface. Finding water can also indicate potential for life. Another target to start the mission is WASP-18b, a “hot Jupiter” with an atmosphere, according to NASA.

Webb is also able to shed light on the mysteries of planetary formation. Building on Spitzer’s work on brown dwarfs, objects too large to be planets but too small to be stars, Webb can take a closer look at the properties of his clouds.

The telescope will analyze many exoplanets and study their atmospheres, if any, and help answer questions about how the planets formed and evolved. Their spectroscopic data can tell scientists if there is methane, carbon dioxide, or carbon monoxide in the atmosphere. The gases in these atmospheres can reveal the basis of life.

Other objects of interest for the initial scientific mission include the observation of a black hole in the center of the Milky Way, the formation of planetary systems, bright quasars in the center of galaxies, and remnants of the formation of our solar system known as Kuiper belt objects, including Pluto. and his moon Charon.

what can he do

With all these adjectives, Webb’s project was an extraordinary task. The observatory has three main elements.

One is the Integrated Scientific Instruments Module, which contains a suite of four Webb instruments. They will mainly be used for image capture or spectroscopy – separating light into different wavelengths to identify physical and chemical components.

The second element of the telescope is the optics, the main eye of the observatory, which includes the mirrors and a column, or frame, that supports the mirrors. The third is called a spaceship, which includes a space shuttle and a sun shield.

The shuttle includes six main subsystems required for the operation of the spacecraft, including controls for motion, power, communications, data and temperature.

A tennis court-sized five-layer sun visor will protect the giant Webb mirror and its tools from the sun’s heat as they must be stored at an operating temperature of -188 ° C.

The innovations used in the design and construction of the telescope also benefit us on Earth. A technique has been developed to quickly and accurately measure mirrors so that they can be polished. It was then adapted for ophthalmologists performing severity-corrected LASIK surgery as it creates high-resolution eye maps of patients.

When will we see the first images?

Have you ever heard of the “seven minutes of horror” when the Perseverance robot landed on Mars? Webb’s team will have a much longer and more tiresome waiting period. The agency called it “29 days to the limit.”

After launching in French Guiana, the observatory will travel for about a month until it reaches orbit about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth. During those 29 days, Webb will open his mirrors and deploy a sun shield. This process includes thousands of parts that must work flawlessly and in the correct sequence.

Fortunately, every step can be monitored from Earth in case of trouble.

The telescope will then undergo a six-month period of preparation in space, instrument cooling, alignment and calibration. All instruments will go through a validation process to assess their performance.

Webb will then begin collecting data and first images later in 2022. Thousands of scientists have waited for years to see what Webb has to show us.

“The first year of the Webb Telescope will provide many scientists around the world with the first opportunity to observe specific objects with NASA’s next major space observatory,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, deputy administrator of NASA’s Science Missions Office. “The science to be shared with the world community will be bold and deep.”

(* This text has been translated. Click Here read the original in English)